MEAZZI Emulation

[dave robinson]

Having spent the last few weeks listening to the best echo machines available to us, including recordings of Justin's Meazzi which sounds great, I have to concede that the best and closest sound to the original Shadows recordings were from the TVS3, which was brought around to my studio by Tony Parnham who allowed Daniel Martin and I to make recordings and do comparison tests against Alesis Quads, Magicstomp, ESE Echomatic, Binson Echorec, Watkins Copicat IC400 and the Zoom machines. All the machines were more than acceptable, but the TVS3 has something that gives the 'magic'.

I heard Justin's Meazzi on the Tilburg videos on You Tube and it does sound great, but it isn't the recorded sound that the TVS3 delivers. We took turns in playing through an AC30/4, Vox Heritage AC15 as well as a humble Vox ADT30 and they all sounded equal when recorded with the TVS3, then when we D.I'd it into the desk, the magic was still evident. I know it's expensive, but it is the business, I'll post a demo of The Savage soon for everyone to hear.

[MeBHank]

Hi Guys, Back on this topic again.
I have just returned from Pipeline which I very much enjoyed. I have followed this thread with great interest and I appreciate many of the opinions expressed,but everything in my opinion fades into insignificance against the sound Justin generated at Pipeline. We can't all have Meazzis or old AC15s,or Justin's dedication and style,but the sound he produced was fabulous, - to me at least. Can you emulate that ? - I don't know but I understand why people try.
Des.

Wow, what a comment. Thank you, Des. It's wonderful to know that the hard work is starting to pay off.

J

[Spike]

Des, unless you were at the Friday night social evening prior to the last Shadowmania you won't have heard my Meazzi (but I mucked up the echo settings that night and it sounded awful!), but you will have heard those belonging to Colin Pryce-Jones and Phil Kelly. The circuits of these units are not all that different from those of the Meazzi drum echoes. There are differences, certainly, but not in the vital parts of the circuit which give that special Meazzi depth.

Bertil, The TVS1 does not have the Meazzi circuit, it is simply a tone shaper (as far as I am aware). The sound of the Meazzi circuit will be supplied only by the TVS3. I'm afraid I've not tried the PB Box, but again, I don't believe it actually introduces the Meazzi circuit to the guitar signal.

Gary, I think that's pretty much the correct order of the way things went. If you consider the length of time Hank that was using the Model 2 you realize how much he loved that echo.

J

Hi Justin

Just for the records the TVS1 does have a Meazzi preamp and associated circuitry and also contains a valve. This analog unit doesnt have all the other bells and whistles of the TVS3 but you can hear the Meazzi undertones. This information can be found on the TVS website under the heading PROSPECTUS http://www.tvsspecialtyproducts.com/page5.htm

[tony parnham]

I own a TVS3 and I have done comparisons at home with the Magicstomp and the very cheap Zoom G2 all side by side in the TVS1 mode, which is done in series by inputting the units separately into the TVS3, then enabling the Meazzi emulation but turning off the TVS3 echoes. My conclusions were that the Meazzi emulation worked very well on both the MS and the G2 with the Direct guitar sound giving them that vintage colour; their cascading echoes were also somewhat coloured but not particulary emphatic each unit retaining a lot of their digital characteristics.
Take them out of the chain however and turn on the TVS3, there is an instant overall tonal characteristic change accompanied by an amount of dirt or distortion emulation (call it whatever you like) depending on whereabouts the 'LEVEL' knob is turned from 1-10 capturing the sound of the tape over the heads.
In short, yes it's true the TVS1 gives a good vintage tonal change but for me there is a dramatic difference in the stand-alone TVS3. It's like putting the MS/G2 through Justins Meazzi without turning the tape motor on. For me the whole point of the excersise is to attempt to capture the full potential of the early Meazzi and I think the TVS3 makes a very good job of doing that.
Further to this for anyone who may be interested, not that I am an expert on sound but I just use my ears but I have also made tests using the TVS3 with other amplifiers, Marshall, Blackstar, Messa Boogie, Fender, Peavey, Harley Benton, Line 6 and of course Vox. (I am able to do this as I work odd days from time to time at Palfreyman's Music Shop in Chesterfield.)
The bottom line is, and just my opinion of course, the Vox just blows the others away, the sound is very Meazzi and vintage, although the TVS3 gives a very acceptable sound when Eq'd correctly on the other amps then you can get close, the next best were the Fenders in particular I tried the Blues Junior. I suppose its like getting Phil Kelly to give us a repeat demo of his youtube video's through a 50 watt Marshall Head.
Regards Tony

[Didier]

Des, unless you were at the Friday night social evening prior to the last Shadowmania you won't have heard my Meazzi (but I mucked up the echo settings that night and it sounded awful!), but you will have heard those belonging to Colin Pryce-Jones and Phil Kelly. The circuits of these units are not all that different from those of the Meazzi drum echoes. There are differences, certainly, but not in the vital parts of the circuit which give that special Meazzi depth.

Bertil, The TVS1 does not have the Meazzi circuit, it is simply a tone shaper (as far as I am aware). The sound of the Meazzi circuit will be supplied only by the TVS3. I'm afraid I've not tried the PB Box, but again, I don't believe it actually introduces the Meazzi circuit to the guitar signal.

Gary, I think that's pretty much the correct order of the way things went. If you consider the length of time Hank that was using the Model 2 you realize how much he loved that echo.

J

Hi Justin

Just for the records the TVS1 does have a Meazzi preamp and associated circuitry and also contains a valve. This analog unit doesnt have all the other bells and whistles of the TVS3 but you can hear the Meazzi undertones. This information can be found on the TVS website under the heading PROSPECTUS http://www.tvsspecialtyproducts.com/page5.htm

The PB Box also have a Meazzi emulation tone preamp. In the first model (2000) it was achieved using solid state circuits, in the second improved model (since 2004), it's achieved with a valve for a closer emulation.
The PB Box specifications makes it rather similar to the now discontinued TVS2.

Didier

[padmat78]

Mon cher Didier Parrot

Ta détermination franchouillarde est un réèl plaisir...

[padmat78]

It is certainly true that the wheel was not designed to actually touch the heads, I promise. They were, in fact, positioned a hair's breadth away from the drum so that they didn't actually touch it, but so they were still close enough for the magetic oxide to be read.

I have serious doubts about that, you can see on close-up pics that on the Meazzi, heads are on hinged arms pushed against the drum by wire springs.



If there had been no contact between heads and drum, there would not have been the oxide wear problem...
BTW, keeping "an hair's breadth away" between heads and drum wouls be very difficult with drum dilatation (remember, theses are valve units, getting rather hot inside).
In the early days of computers, magnetic drum memory units were used, but quicly dropped because of this problem. They were replaced by discs, with the heads actually floating "an hair's breadth away" from the disc surface thanks to an air film.

Didier

Didier, is that a Meazzi Drum Photo ? Never seen one before. I have to agree with you regarding the springs and also the variant spring used in the Binson Design. I think Amanda could easily confirm you wrong Justin, as the heads need to touch the surface, and I believe it's a myth believing they do not touch the surface. Electronically it doesn't make sense and you simply have to make contact to read the data.

I
ha ha ha!!!!! Excellent

[Abbeyroadie]

Hi to all contributors to this thread,
To those who may be interested and might require any further proof (allbeit hearsay from me) beyond the excellent photo posted, I had many a conversation about the "old days"with my long standing friend Dick Denney before he sadly passed. To cut along story short Dick told me that he had lost count of the times he was "called up" to sort the problems/damage caused to Hank's Meazzi's by general wear and tear / "lost oxide".
Peter Alden

[Didier]

Hi to all contributors to this thread,
To those who may be interested and might require any further proof (allbeit hearsay from me) beyond the excellent photo posted, I had many a conversation about the "old days"with my long standing friend Dick Denney before he sadly passed. To cut along story short Dick told me that he had lost count of the times he was "called up" to sort the problems/damage caused to Hank's Meazzi's by general wear and tear / "lost oxide".
Peter Alden

When you look at the Meazzi's drum and heads assembly, it's perfectly obvious that the heads, fixed on spring loaded swivelling arms, were in contact with the drum. The drum wasn't running fast enough to create an air film, keeping the heads out of contact with the drum, as it's the case with current data storage magnetic discs (where heads are floating a very few microns from the disc surface). As a consequence, the drum ferric oxyde magnetic coating was wearing out rather quickly. May be that some PTFE (Teflon) coating above the magnetic coating could have helped.
It's been reported that Dick Denney used to replace the magnetic coating by sticking magnetic tape around the drum, which of course would also wear out...

This was a major flaw in the Meazzi drum echo unit design, and explains why it was quickly dropped by Meazzi in favor of tape units. It didn't suppress wear, but it's far easier and cheaper to replace a tape loop than a drum !...

I don't know how the heads are installed on Binson units, but the drum is not covered by magnetic oxyde coating, it's covered by steel wire, which of course is more resistant to wear...

Didier

[Amanda]

Hi Didier,

I can reliably say that the heads on Binsons are adjusted so as to be just touching the
steel wire area of the drum, I've just set up a Binson Echorec 2 that had all the heads out of alignment
and what an involved job it was, there are 3 adjustments all that slip when you adjust
one of the others!

As for the Meazzi Disc echo with the original disc having a magnetic oxide coating I would assume
that the heads would be adjusted so as to be barely touching the surface.

I have a schaller here that uses the oxide coated drum and the heads are set so that they
are virtually touching the drum.

Peter, Charlie was telling me about Dick's visits to the Palladium to sort out Hank's meazzi,
apparently he used to also oil the tape to help with the wear problem.

Theoretically the Wheel Echomatic as it is shown in the picture will sound virtually the same as
a tape meazzi as it uses tape as the magnetic medium.